Hottest Silicon Valley start-ups

Seen as the startup capital of the world, Silicon Valley is home to some of the word’s biggest tech companies…

Apple, Cisco, Google and Netflix are just a handful of businesses that choose to pick the southern portion of the San Francisco bay to set-up their headquarters.

It’s not just nostalgia that keeps them hanging around, especially as it’s one of the most expensive places in America to live, but the vast amount of business opportunities.

Anyone with a big idea will attempt to set-up shop in Silicon Valley in the hopes of making it big. Most fail to get past the first 12 months before declaring bankruptcy, but some secure vital funding and grow big enough to rub shoulders with Silicon Valley’s biggest tech giants.

The goal? Last long enough to make their idea profitable, or be able to name their price when a larger competitor comes knocking.

Here are a few of the hottest start-ups making waves in Silicon Valley:

GITLAB – Funding to date: $25 million
If you’re a programmer, you may have heard of their high-profile competitor GitHub. They’re both a place for people to store and work on code collaboratively. The difference being GitLab has been targeting Fortune 500 companies exclusively, securing customers like AT&T and IBM.

Ashton Kutcher has even put his own hard-earned money behind the venture.

SLACK – Funding to date: $539 million
Think Facebook Messenger, but for work, and that is still underselling what Slack can do. Touted as the all-in-one work-chat app, Slack helps connect workspaces by virtual chartrooms with loads of extra integrated apps. Ask it to look up nearby restaurants and it will show you the Top 5 Trip Advisor listings.

With 4 million daily active users, it’s growing fast. But it’s recently caught the eye of Microsoft who have recently launched their own rival product, Teams.

HACKERONE – Funding to date: $34 million
Need to see if your website is secure? You need a whitehat hacker to test all of its possible vulnerabilities and tell you how to fix them. HackerOne allows companies to set “bug bounties” for screened and qualified hackers to attack them and pay them based on the holes they find.

In 2016, HackerOne put on a program called ‘Hack the Pentagon’ where 1,400 hackers successfully found 138 bugs. The Department of Defense were so happy with the results that they sent a commemorative coin to each participant.

REVEL SYSTEMS – Funding to date: $127 million
With the boom in mobile and contactless payments, cash money transactions are on the decline. Revel Systems is capitalising on this by creating technology that allows any iPad to handle secure card transactions.

Founded in 2010, it has about 750 people on its payroll and has just landed a huge contract with Shell petrol stations.

CLOUDFLARE – Funding to date: $182 million
Secretly running the internet, Cloudflare handles as much of 10% of all web traffic. It allows companies to speed up their website and protect them from hackers by intercepting and blocking any potential intruders before they get too far.

Last year, it was assigned to guard Donald’s Trump website in the run-up to the presidential election from the hacker group Anonymous. Good or bad, the website never went down.

STRIPE – Funding to date: $440 million
If you’re thinking of running an online store, you will probably stumble across Stripe. It’s one of the easiest solutions for merchants to accept and track payments online.

With an easy-to-use interface and loyal developer community, Stripe is one of the most widely integrated payment systems on the Internet. Even working seamlessly with the likes of Apple Pay.

FRONT – Funding to date: $13 million
Managing email addresses like sales@ or support@ can be a real pain when more than one person has access to it. Front allows companies to delegate one inbox amongst many people, so teams can work on multiple emails with ease.

It doesn’t stop there either; it also allows teams to collaborate on Twitter and Facebook messages too. Slack’s CEO is even credited as one of their early investors.

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They say it's better to travel than to arrive. We think both are important.

With BLOC you won't have far to travel at all. We’re waiting to welcome you just steps from Gatwick South Terminal departures. Any closer and we’d be on the runway.

Our brand new 245 room hotel offers 'Sleep Haven Zones’, family rooms, a business floor and Presidential Suite. Park at the terminal through one of our exclusive deals; check your bags with your airline and take your overnight bag to the room; send an email with free WiFi; relax on your sumptuous king-sized bed, watching one of our HD LED TVs; freshen up in a monsoon-drench shower wet room and seamlessly check out to arrive at your gate in a great mood to enjoy your holiday or business trip. So much more for less.

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